Preparation and application of yellow fever virus NS1 protein-specific monoclonal antibodies

Yellow fever is an acute infectious disease that is common in Africa and South America and causes thousands of deaths annually. However, there are very few studies on yellow fever virus (YFV) antigen detection kits. As a detection target, the nonstructural protein 1 (NS1) has been successfully used in the early diagnosis of dengue virus (a member of the Flaviviridae family) infection. In this study, we used monoclonal antibody technology to prepare anti-YFV NS1 monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) and identified their immunological properties. Next, we used two mouse MAbs that can recognize different epitopes of YFV NS1 as capture and detection antibodies to establish a YFV NS1 antigen-capture enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The antigen-capture ELISA displayed exclusive specificity to YFV without cross-reaction with other related members of the flavivirus family, including the dengue virus, West Nile virus, Japanese encephalitis virus. Additionally, the detection sensitivity towards the YFV culture supernatant was 103 TCID50/mL and the detection positivity rate was 95% compared with reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction. In conclusion, this newly developed NS1 antigen-capture ELISA with high sensitivity and specificity could be used as an efficient method for the early diagnosis of YFV infection in animals or humans.